June 20, 2006

Spanking the uniMoodle

The uniMoodle URL is active. Unity is serving sockets like a sommelier. A synchronous application is running in the sidebar of my course. It works and I'm pleased as cheese.
One issue I had to clear up was detecting this._url and punching up the path of the xml config file. Same thing as in Vista, but easier because on Moodle files actually exist at a URL rather than in the RelativeResourcesManager (A.K.A. the Interzone).
My next step is to do a SCORM hookup for graded, group interactions. I'll also need to get the licensed uClient Core so the apps won't time out.

The birth of the uniMoodle

A few weeks ago, I ported one of our Vista courses to the UofM Moodle Pilot Project. It works fine and I love the RSS sidebars. The only grief was converting the Respondus output to something Moodle would recognize.

I've reached the limits of Breeze Meeting syncSWF capabilities. The peer-to-peer event model isn't suitable for physics simulations in real time. Linking out to Breeze from a course is a drag and there's no way I know of to get a score back to Vista.

Moock is listed just before Moodle in the Nerd Dictionary. Why not run the Unity Multi-user Server on the same box as a Moodle? Unity offers a lot of the functionality of Flash Communication Server for a lot less money. In fact, the 5-user trial is free. That plus the $0.00 cost of Moodle is well within budget constraints.

The CCE OIS department is being super helpful in providing a box and configuration assistance. Once we have a working prototype, I'll show it off to OIT and see if they want to put Unity on their Moodle Pilot.